55 ms·

When are people gonna shake the false impression that *BSD are outdated and their flavor of Debuntu is far superior?

by kbar13 13y ago

dethstar 13y ago
Too bad those mods/upgrades/updates are not free software?
- mathgladiator 13y ago
  I'm curious as to what you mean by this since it does not compute.
- Sanddancer 13y ago
  They are. Most companies using BSD-licensed software realize that it just makes sense to not release contributions back to the community. Having to backport whenever a new release comes out just to hide a couple shiny features quickly becomes very much not worth it. Netflix in particular is a major contributor in code, cash, and community, so saying the mods aren't free software is utter ignorance. The meme that only restrictively-licensed free software gets people to contribute back has frankly been debunked from here to mars and back.
  - xradionut 13y ago
    How many companies have contributed to help OpenSSH??? Damn few.
    - clarry 13y ago
      How many companies have made changes worth contributing back, but decided to keep to themselves? That'd be interesting to know.
    - ams6110 13y ago
      RedHat contributed their ssh-ldap-helper to allow ssh to effectively use an LDAP server as its authorized_keys source.
- cperciva 13y ago
  ... except that they are. Scott Long and Adrian Chadd are working full-time for Netflix, and other developers (e.g., Kirk McKusick, Gleb Smirnoff) have been hired from time to time for other work. Aside from short time periods while Netflix is testing kernel patches (on live traffic!) all their FreeBSD code is in the SVN repository.
- protomyth 13y ago
  If the company is willing to contribute it back, it is probably good software and the company will probably be a good partner. If the only reason the contribute the code back is because of the license, I would imagine they will suck as a partner and the code probably won't be of good quality. I look at BSD / MIT as foundational licenses that anyone can use. Those companies that don't understand the business case for getting their changes put back into the mainline of a project just aren't worth your time. It is a nice self selection process by companies and a good indicator if they will get the whole open source thing. Its like a spam filter for source code. For example, Netflix is contributing source and money back.
Slackwise 13y ago
When people also acknowledge that Gentoo is effectively the best of both worlds?
- diadara 13y ago
  ain'tnobody got time for that. Gentoo is cool and all but I don't want to compile everything from source.
  - meddlepal 13y ago
    Didn't gentoo do away with the stage 1/2/3 stuff a couple Years ago?
    - aceperry 13y ago
      They did, but then you have to spend all of your time fixing broken packages whenever you do a world update. :P
  - mackal 13y ago
    I used to use Gentoo back in the day, then I got a laptop and was like "I won't have time to compile everything!" Then I distro hopped for a few years, never really being happy, I am now happily back on Gentoo.
- hypnotist 13y ago
  Actually, Arch[1] is the best of both worlds. 1.https://www.archlinux.org https://www.archlinux.org Comparison to others: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Compared_to_Other_Distributions https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Compared_to_Other_...
  - lmm 13y ago
    Even on Arch, ZFS is awkward (btrfs is most of the way there but maturity is important in a filesystem), sound is still the mess that it always is on linux, and the system keeps changing underfoot.
EliRivers 13y ago
Who says BSD is outdated? I've never heard anyone say that, and I thought I'd heard all the OS whinges going.
dscrd 13y ago
FreeBSD package server was compromised quite a long time ago. Have they restored it yet? It not being there is sort of a deal-breaker for me, since I really cannot be bothered to compile all the 3rd party packages I use from source.
- uggedal 13y ago
  Yes, it's restored: http://www.freebsd.org/news/2012-compromise.html http://www.freebsd.org/news/2012-compromise.html

When are people gonna shake the false impression that *BSD are outdated and their flavor of Debuntu is far superior?

by kbar13 13y ago

When are people gonna shake the false impression that *BSD are outdated and their flavor of Debuntu is far superior?

dethstar 13y ago

Too bad those mods/upgrades/updates are not free software?

mathgladiator 13y ago
I'm curious as to what you mean by this since it does not compute.
Sanddancer 13y ago
They are. Most companies using BSD-licensed software realize that it just makes sense to not release contributions back to the community. Having to backport whenever a new release comes out just to hide a couple shiny features quickly becomes very much not worth it. Netflix in particular is a major contributor in code, cash, and community, so saying the mods aren't free software is utter ignorance. The meme that only restrictively-licensed free software gets people to contribute back has frankly been debunked from here to mars and back.
- xradionut 13y ago
  How many companies have contributed to help OpenSSH??? Damn few.
  - clarry 13y ago
    How many companies have made changes worth contributing back, but decided to keep to themselves? That'd be interesting to know.
  - ams6110 13y ago
    RedHat contributed their ssh-ldap-helper to allow ssh to effectively use an LDAP server as its authorized_keys source.
cperciva 13y ago
... except that they are. Scott Long and Adrian Chadd are working full-time for Netflix, and other developers (e.g., Kirk McKusick, Gleb Smirnoff) have been hired from time to time for other work. Aside from short time periods while Netflix is testing kernel patches (on live traffic!) all their FreeBSD code is in the SVN repository.
protomyth 13y ago
If the company is willing to contribute it back, it is probably good software and the company will probably be a good partner. If the only reason the contribute the code back is because of the license, I would imagine they will suck as a partner and the code probably won't be of good quality. I look at BSD / MIT as foundational licenses that anyone can use. Those companies that don't understand the business case for getting their changes put back into the mainline of a project just aren't worth your time. It is a nice self selection process by companies and a good indicator if they will get the whole open source thing. Its like a spam filter for source code. For example, Netflix is contributing source and money back.

Slackwise 13y ago

When people also acknowledge that Gentoo is effectively the best of both worlds?

diadara 13y ago
ain'tnobody got time for that. Gentoo is cool and all but I don't want to compile everything from source.
- meddlepal 13y ago
  Didn't gentoo do away with the stage 1/2/3 stuff a couple Years ago?
  - aceperry 13y ago
    They did, but then you have to spend all of your time fixing broken packages whenever you do a world update. :P
- mackal 13y ago
  I used to use Gentoo back in the day, then I got a laptop and was like "I won't have time to compile everything!" Then I distro hopped for a few years, never really being happy, I am now happily back on Gentoo.
hypnotist 13y ago
Actually, Arch[1] is the best of both worlds. 1.https://www.archlinux.org https://www.archlinux.org Comparison to others: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Compared_to_Other_Distributions https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Compared_to_Other_...
- lmm 13y ago
  Even on Arch, ZFS is awkward (btrfs is most of the way there but maturity is important in a filesystem), sound is still the mess that it always is on linux, and the system keeps changing underfoot.

EliRivers 13y ago

Who says BSD is outdated? I've never heard anyone say that, and I thought I'd heard all the OS whinges going.

dscrd 13y ago

FreeBSD package server was compromised quite a long time ago. Have they restored it yet? It not being there is sort of a deal-breaker for me, since I really cannot be bothered to compile all the 3rd party packages I use from source.

uggedal 13y ago
Yes, it's restored: http://www.freebsd.org/news/2012-compromise.html http://www.freebsd.org/news/2012-compromise.html